Off the Beaten Path
by The Masked Ottsel
Summary: The story of a small-town, no-name band and how it made history, from the point of view of the eccentric Sixth Chair Trombone. Based on a real band and real events, with a hefty sprinkling of fiction.


**Alright, there was too much fucking angst when I as looking up Marching Band fics. Now, I'm going to terrorize you all with the stories of MY marching band which has little to no angst but has enough shit to make up for it. Since I never write first-person, I thought this might be a good place to start - a story about an awesome version of me and my family-away-from-home. This I probably the only chapter in first-person, tho. DX **

**Note: No, I'm not using real names, places, or events in this fic, except for a few references. Just fun representations of them.**

* * *

Even though I dragged myself through Freshman year, passed all of my classes - one of which by the skin of my teeth - and saw all of my buddy Seniors graduate, I still feel like a noob.

God damn, when did I pick up saying Noob? Must've been Runescape. Dangit.

Note to self: Stop saying "noob."

I picked up my old tote bag-slash-backpack, currently loaded with water bottles, sun block, my wallet, my cell phone, two pencils and a pad of paper. I was about to walk to the high school for the first full-band week of Band Camp. The freshies, the drum line and the colorguard had to show up for half the week before, but since I was a Sophomore - that feels so good to say, Sophomore - I was not obligated to go. Right now, I was wearing something I would not normally be caught dead in, namely shorts and a light shirt. My hair was even tied up in a haphazard ponytail.

The people who know me would say that this particular choice of attire was totally not me - I'm the kind of girl who wears jeans, baggy silkscreen T-shirts, and, most importantly, I ALWAYS wear my hair down. But, after roasting my freshman ass for two weeks while wearing my weird fashion statements last year, something got through to my brain that maybe, just maybe, wearing shorts and sunblock in the heat of summer in Kentucky might have been a good idea.

The walk to my high school is stupid short. I don't even know why buses stop in my area of the subdivision. If there weren't cute little manicured trees and a major state highway in-between my house and the High School, I could be able to easily see it, probably be able to run there and back in about a minute. But, there's a scenic little stretch of Highway 60 between me and there, and I have to cross via the crosswalk, which adds about seven minutes to an otherwise radically short walk. And there's no freaking way I'm gonna run through traffic carrying a heavy bag. I'm not that stupid, although I HAVE had my moments, but being nailed by a kitschy little Smartcar is not on my list for being one of them.

Some little idiot, a long time ago, wrote "This is A Bridge" on the crosswalk's top with brown spray paint. Within the last month, someone equally idiotic wrote "No shiT" just beside it in bright blue. The crosswalk - which everyone calls the Pedway - was wreathed in ten-foot-high rusty old chainlink fence so that if, let's say, someone was texting while walking, they wouldn't walk right off the edge and splatter all over the pavement below. By the way, I don't approve of driving/walking/biking/swimming while distracted. I saw someone texting on their cell phone while riding their bike once - the phrase "they were all over the road" could have been used literally in that situation.

Upon nearing the school building itself, after a narration-less walk in which I gave you my two cents about the concept of the walk itself, I inhaled deeply, trying vainly to settle my nerves. I hadn't seen most of the band since school ended - although our director, Mr. Kemper, had driven by and said hi while I was walking to the library - and I was not ready at all to meet a bucketful of new Freshmen. Worst of all, it had just now occurred to me that I probably should've brought my trombone, aptly named Fortissimo, to the first day with me. Packing my lunch would've probably been a good idea too. So much for being prepared.

As soon as I entered the band room through the school's back door, my self-proclaimed adopted sister and best friend Meg ran up from behind me and proceeded to glomp me.

For those of you that don't know, "glomp" is a technical term for taking a running jump at someone and landing on them in a very tight and heartfelt hug. In this case, a rather robust and silly-looking trombonist was just tackled by a tall, skinny, and pale flutist.

I couldn't help the wide grin that instantly graced my face. "Heyas, Meg!"

"Hi, Quin! I missed you so much!" she said happily.

Yes. My name is Quin. Say anything and I'll beat your face in with Fortissimo's tuning slide.

"So, how was your summer?"

"It was summer, I guess," she said, releasing me from her glomp. "Did you get to see Robert?"

I blushed at the mention of my boyfriend. "Yeah," I said, and left it at that. She didn't need to know how I'd seen him, and neither did you, nosy little readers. This is about a Marching Band, not the social life of the people in it.

"Was your summer all right?" Meg asked.

"Wasn't long enough," I said, and opened my bag. I dug through it until I found my wallet.

"Whatcha doin'?" she asked.

"Paying the band fee," I said, and headed toward Mr. Kemper's office.

The person taking the money for the fee this year was the semi-band assistant, a sour-looking woman aptly named Mrs. Sower. She used to be the director of a State Finalist band in another county, and now she terrorizes the band half the day and directs the Middle School's drama program during the rest of her time. Last year she gave my little brother the part of a singing goose in the annual school play, which happened to be a musical. His part was so small they didn't even put the character's name in the brochure. That kid was a damn fine actor, but singing wasn't his strength.

To say the least, I was afraid of Mrs. Sower. She was crisp and curt with all the students, and didn't hesitate to yell at practices and rehearsals when people weren't up-to-par with her standards. But, alas, 'twere Mrs. Sowers doing the receipts for the Band Fee, so I had to suck it up.

I pulled the neat little cheque for four hundred and fifty dollars out of my wallet and got in line with the other people there to turn in the monies. There were three people, two of whose names escaped me at the moment but I knew they were upperclassmen trumpets, and Sally, a clarinet sophomore who hung out with another trombonist, Mara.

Meg was, of course, waiting right behind me, despite waiting until later to pay her fee.

When I handed Mrs. Sower my cheque, she squinted at it for a moment before leisurely filling out the receipt and handing it to me. I noticed, as I left the room, that she'd spelled both my first and last name wrong. A first for me, but I didn't really care, so I just stuck the receipt in my wallet and put it back in my bag.

"I know where your wallet is now," Meg teased. "I can steal your money now whenever I want."

I rolled my eyes. Meg wouldn't steal an apple from her own fridge.

As I neared my band locker from last year, I saw the rest of my dearly beloved Trombone Section, minus Travis who graduated last year, and plus the section's sole new Freshie, who I didn't know and probably wouldn't be able to get his name down until next week. Rupert, the tall, grim, trigger-trombone First Chair was there, being tall and grim as per usual, and James, the fucking awesome sole senior and only black member of the Trombone section, wearing one of his silk-screen print T-shirt with the impossibly complex designs on it. Alexa, the third chair girl from my year and another one of my dearly beloved bf's, was trying to get something from Rupert, god only knows what it was. Mara, the fourth chair, was a tall, energetic, bitchy-in-a-good-way ginger who you couldn't help but like. She was talking to Sally over to the side of the Alexa-Rupert scene, laughing and smiling. And of course you know me, Quin the fifth chair trombone, girl with long, brown, frizzly hair and more than one strange tendency.

And that would make Freshie Boy sixth chair.

Freshie Boy, in question, was about my height - which, by the way, would be 5'9" - with wavy brown hair, cut short, and a sort of weasel-y demeanor. His shirt was something or other from Family Guy.

"Hi Alexa!" I said happily, waving.

She turned around from whatever was happening between her and Rupert. "Hi, Quin!" she said happily.

"What's Rupert got?" I asked .

Alexa blushed, and Rupert grinned, something that I don't see him do much. Fortunately, Alexa took Rupert's momentary distraction and took a heroic jump about a foot and a half in the air to reach Rupert's hand and snatch whatever he was tormenting her with back. There was a minor struggle as Rupert tried to reclaim it, but Alexa wiggled out of his grip and dashed past me in a flight for the back room where the school instruments were stored. Rupert didn't give chase.

I stepped aside as the Mystery Freshie - he had just made the jump from Freshie Boy to Mystery Freshie - went to put his instrument case in the cages in the corner where the trombones kept their horns. Rupert greeted him, but I didn't catch his name.

I looked around to see what Meg was doing, and my heart sank as I saw her taking with a couple of freshies. They were two girls, both with short hair, one little and mousey and one about a foot taller, both whom I recognized from riding the bus with them for two years before I moved. They were a Flute and Clarinet pair, and Meg was talking to them animatedly.

Did I mention that I didn't want to deal with any Freshies?

Man, I really shoulda gone to Freshman Band Camp.

My mope-ish thoughts were interrupted as Mr. Kemper called the band to attention, or rather, our senior drum major, Mello, did.

Mello was a pretty black girl, a little on the short side, with a perfect figure and a voice that carried like a foghorn. She was strong, reliable, and had always been a prominent figure in the band even as the junior in the junior-senior Drum Major team. She had been a Drum Major last year, too, and we - meaning the band - all agreed that she had been the first choice for this year's drum majors. Not everyone agreed with the second choice, however; Penny, a former French Horn who could either be really calm, funny and likable or who could be a total bitch. (All the French Horns were like that last year.) Her voce wasn't half as loud as Mello's, and she had to yell to be heard, while Mello could raise her voice just a little bit and be heard over a crowd of chittering bandies.

"_Band ten-HUT!_" Mello barked, clapping her hands with the rhythm of the command.

We all stood stock-still, hands at our sides, the room still resonating with the energetic "HUUUT" that we had all had called when called to attention. We heard Mr. Kemper laugh from over by the podium.

"Siddown, you guys," he said.

We all obliged, waiting expectantly for him to speak. Some people in this band think of Kemper as just another coach or teacher, but I respect him a whole lot and I was excited to hear him give a first-day-of-full-band speech to us.

"Well, you guys," he said. "How was summer for all you upperclassmen?"

There was a chorus of "great" and "awesome" and "not long enough" from most of the crowd, and Kemper laughed good-heartedly. "Cool," he said. "I'm glad to see most of you here today - nobody's late!" Another chorus of laughter met this statement. Punctuality was not something our band was known for. Kemper waited patiently for the noise to die down before continuing. "Freshmen, you heard this speech last week. Go on ahead down to the field, no instruments." Again he waited, this time as the surprisingly huge crowd of freshies leaked out the band room's convinient back door. Finally, he turned to face the rest of us - this year's Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.

"Well, guys," he said, rubbing his hands together .They, like his arms and face, were slightly sunburnt. "Nice to see you all again. Now, be honest; how many of you haven't touched your horns since graduation?"

A great deal of us raised our hands, including myself.

An I-should-have-expected-as-much expression came over Kemper's face. He then looked up suddenly, noticing something. "Does anyone know where Daniel is?"

"He's in Texas with Amy," one of the other Seniors said. Daniel was our sole Bari-Sax player and was apparently missing. Amy was last year's drum major.

"When's he going to be back?"

"Next week, he said."

Kemper sighed. "We're setting drill this week... Ah well." He ran one hand through his spiky blond hair. "As you guys all know, I got several job offers over the summer."

Silence. Everyone knew this. The unspoken names of several elite schools - and their marching bands - went through everyone's heads. Kemper suddenly looked a lot more morose. Almost as morose as the band before him felt.

"And as you guys know," he continued, "I turned down all those offers. And it wasn't because I get paid more money here, because you guys know that'd be a lie. They were offering three times what I get here. I turned down the other guys because I knew I had students here that..." his voice trailed off. "I just couldn't bear to leave you guys."

"We love ya, Kemper," said the Senior trumpet Josh. The entire group of students immediately chimed in with approval and laughter. Kemper himself smiled and laughed.

"Thank you, Josh," he said.

* * *

Looking back on that conversation, I knew that Kemper had gone through hell and back that summer. Our school's funding for the band was pitiful. We practiced on the concrete parking lot out back of the school, making sets with spraypaint bought by Kemper himself, and our marching drums were older than I was. The school-owned instruments, until recently, had been in unusable condition, and we had no sousaphones, and only one Bari-Sax. We had too few stands, with our current ones in pitiable condition, and the band had been using the same uniforms for forty years, the new ones bought only a few years before. The infant marching band of Kemper's inaugural year, three years ago, was still spoken of with a shudder. We'd never gotten a Distinguished. And he had been offered a job at one of the top schools in the state, who HAD sousaphones, who HAD decent equipment, who made it to Finals EVERY year, who won competitions with the ease of breathing. The fact that he'd given up heading the perfect competitive marching band to stay with us, the band who loved him and who he loved in return, probably made him the best director EVER.

Mooshy crap aside, the rest of that morning went without incident. After Kemper finished his let's-get-down-to-buisness-to-defeat-the-huns speech, he dismissed us Sophomores and Juniors to have a heart-to-heart with the Seniors. On the field, we stretched, and for the next three hours practiced marching and fundamentals. Oddly enough, we were actually making good progress - the heat wasn't too overbearing, there was a nice breeze, and the freshies had most definitely paid attention in last week's session. Hell, that morning was the best I'd seen since last year's band camp. People were on the ball and dedicated. Hell, even the colorguard looked good for a change. And I immediately took a liking to their new coach, a tall, lanky black guy named Danko who had this odd kinda grace that most often showed when he practiced with the flags and rifles. And he was funny as hell, in a verbally abusive way. The guard girls all laughed when he flipped out at one of them for doing something wrong. It wasn't cruel; his tone of voice and the way it squeaked when he said something "serious" was often not.

Before lunch, Kemper called us to the podium to give us the basic post-practice sppech. He told us that we'd been doing a good job, and that after lunch we'd have sectionals. The Trombones would be in the choir room. The final thing he told us before he left was what he and the Seniors had discussed earlier. A basic summization of the event was this; our two goals this year for the seniors and the Marching Band as a whole were to make it to semifinals, and to get a Distinguished Rating. We all agreed that these were good goals, but Jasper County's band had never done anything worth mentioning. We had no reputation; nobody expected us to actually be a competitive band.

However, this year, the Jasper County High School Marching Band exceeded expectations.

* * *

**When I started writing this, it was June and I was still in Band Camp. Everything was rosy-toned. I intended to make people laugh. And after all that's happened, I have a different purpose for this fic; our marching band, in real life, made history. And we're proud. And so people don't go and stalk my buds, I've changed all names of places and people. Protecting the innocent, as they say. But keep in mind, this fic is based on real people. No Mary-Sueness intended, no drama induced. This is about the people who made a small town band great. **

**Review if you like. **


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